For a man who favors khakis and a black polo over a shirt-and-tie ensemble, who has a passion for movies and music akin to your average indie college student, it comes as no surprise that Bonomo penned a book about mid-’70s garage rockers the Fleshtones.

After first seeing the band in 1983 at the original 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C., Bonomo was hooked.

“It was one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll shows I’d ever seen,” he said. “I’ve been seeing them regularly since then.”

Bonomo knew he had to tell the story of the band who rose from garages and dive bars to legendary clubs the likes of CBGB.

The Fleshtones “have been laughed at and ignored as often as they’ve been celebrated, but they’ve never thought of quitting or doing anything else,” Bonomo said. “One day it hit me: Wow, what a great story. I think I want to tell it.”

And that’s exactly what he did. After seeing the band at a bar in Athens, Ohio, he pitched the idea to Peter Zaremba (vocals, keys) and Keith Streng (guitar). Though the two were at first apprehensive, the idea and the book took off.

The book took a better part of a decade to research and write, with Bonomo traveling to New York City each summer between 2000 and 2004 for about a month to hunker down and get some serious writing done.

While phone and e-mail interviews cleared facts and stories, the root of the story was on the road. Like any rock journalist, Bonomo boarded the van (not bus) and took off with the band for a run of dates in summer 2001.

“By the time I’d hit the road with them, they’d been in the game for 25 years and their time in the limelight was long gone,” Bonomo said, adding they often spent the nights sleeping on the floors of promoters and cheap hotel rooms and waking up hung over. “But that’s what reinforced to me the greatness of the Fleshtones and the value of the book: It isn’t about conventional success anymore. It’s about the success redefined on a more personal and worthwhile level in the face of great odds.”

Countless stories, interviews and shows later, the 400-plus-page “Sweat: The Story of the Fleshtones, America’s Garage Band,” hit the shelves this month, though Bonomo at one point thought it was going to be something only few eyes would see.

“I’d convinced myself that this whole project might simply result in a manuscript that I’d mail to the band and certain friend and fans, even though I was convinced it was a story for a large audience,” he said.

And even though he’s an English instructor, he tends to keep his personal and work lives separate. He’s discussed the “pitfalls and strategies of writing a biography” in class, something he feels is essential as a teacher.

And although the book is on the shelves, it doesn’t mean Bonomo is slowing down anytime soon. His book of prose sketches, “Installations,” will be out on Penguin in June, and he just finished writing the liner notes to “Vindicated!,” a tribute album to the Fleshtones that will be out next month on CD and vinyl.

Being the leader and teacher that he is, Bonomo offers advice for those who want to have their voices — or, more importantly, words — heard.

“Do not stop writing. Always remind yourself of what drove you to the blank page in the first place,” he said. “If you’re lucky enough to have a great writing partner, you’ll find that having a sounding board and a general morale-booster is helpful, but ultimately you have to rely on yourself. Serious writing is a solitary process.”